Noel Pattison’s journey to the Inter Dominion has been a long one, with devastating lows along the way, but watching his topline trotter Sky Petite line up in Saturday night’s first heats will be a “bloody dream come true”.
Sky Petite will take on the likes of series favourite Tornado Valley and highly-fancied Kyvalley Blur in the first qualifying heat of the TAB Inter Dominion Trotting Championship at Tabcorp Park Melton.
Pattison, who has been in the trots game as an owner-breeder for about 25 years, said the seven-year-old mare had been “terrific to me”.
“She is as honest as the day is long and she has a heart as big as Phar Lap,” he said.
“I have owned a few handy horses but this little girl, I bred her myself, and she’s my best by a mile.
“To get one to the Inter Dominion is a bloody dream come true really.”
Sky Petite’s recent form, including an impressive last start win in the De Bortoli Yarra Valley Trotters Cup, shows she can mix it with the best.
And her ID18 campaign will be made even more significant given her dam, Thepowerofhealing, was bred by Pattison’s late daughter Leanne, who died from kidney complications.
“I still remember that plain as day. It was disappointing that she didn’t see (Thepowerofhealing) race, but those things happen in life and sit you on your bum a bit,” he said.
“She absolutely loved her horses. She went through heaps and the horses used to keep her going and gave her something to look forward to when coming home from hospital.
“She’d be telling us a thing or two now, she’d be letting us know where it all started.”
Leanne bred Thepowerofhealing by taking mare Clefairy to trotting legend Maori’s Idol, whose famed Maori Miss lines feature in the family tree of several ID18 hopefuls.
And Pattison said her choice of sire was evident in Sky Petite today.
“There’s nothing of her but she has a very long stride; I have had a few old fellas say to me it is very like Maori’s Idol at his best,” he said. “I never saw Maori’s Idol run but I have had folks say to me she’s a dead spit of (him) when she’s at full flight.”
Sky Petite spent most of her career in the care of Pattison’s son Dean until she switched stables to Mick Stanley, who will send her out in the heats in the hands of young driver Ryan Duffy.
“Dean has just got too busy in his own work and I know the Duffy boys, Steve and young Ryan, like the back of my hand,” Pattison explains.
“Steven used to train horses at my place and couldn’t get to Sky Petite’s first trial, so I said ‘send the young bloke out’ – that was Ryan, who would have been 16 or 17 at the time, and he drove her a treat.
“He has won two country cups on her and is working down at Michael Stanley’s and that is why the horse is down there.
“I know young Ryan would look after that horse like it was his own and it is a big thing for him too, driving in an Inter Dominion, but he is very good little driver too.”
Pattison said the team was looking forward to the series, where the sky will be the limit.
“Whatever happens it doesn’t matter; (but) if she gets a bit of luck at all she’ll be right in among them.”
